Maryland Men of Faith Conference 2024: Bold Unto the Throne

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Maryland Men of Faith

Plenary

Jonathan Walter

Bold unto the Throne

It's a different feeling when it's just guys, right?

If you go to a conference and it's mixed, it's wonderful and praise God for our wives and our spouses and all these things but when it's just men it feels different.

Only at a men's conference I hope that you and I will be able to come closer to Jesus during this time together.

And so I want to invite you to just pray for yourself as we go through our Bible study this morning that the Holy Spirit will just speak to you.

Whatever He is putting on your heart, whatever He wants you to think about and change in your lives.

This morning we'll be focusing on our theme verse, which is found where?

Hebrews chapter 4, and it's verse 16, but we're going to go a little bit backwards, and We're going to go verse 14 through 16.

Particularly this morning we'll focus on verse 14 as it introduces verse 16, and tonight we'll focus on verse 16 as well.

And we will gain insights by God's grace to what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach Maryland's men of faith with this short but rich scripture.

So I want to invite you to pray 1 more time with me, and then we'll go right into the Word.

Heavenly Father, we stand before you, we sit before you, we are here before you, before the throne of grace, in need of your presence in our lives, of your truth to touch our hearts, your spirit to transform us and empower us to be men of faith.

Boldly we come now and we ask for that grace that only you can give.

We are in desperate need, Father, and we are grateful that in your great love you are willing to give beyond we could ever imagine.

You have given us everything and more in Jesus, and so today we claim the promises of your word that you will speak to us and teach us and we pray it in your name.

Before I continue I noticed the sound is weird.

In fact, let's read the whole section, 14 through 16, but we'll primarily spend our time in verse 14.

Hebrews 4, verse 14-16, if you are there, say Amen.

Alright, the Bible says, Seeing then that we have a Great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, Let's hold it right there.

I love going through Scripture slowly, digesting every part of it, because that is when we can squeeze out the richness of His Word.

Amazon.com is often the first stop for people when they want to order something.

And have you ever ordered something and then you felt a little impatient?

You know, now they give you the status update of every little inch, wherever your package is.

You know where it is, you can track it, you know it's 2 stops away, 1 stop away, and there it is.

And I sometimes get impatient waiting for my delivery.

Now I will never forget moving from Michigan to Maryland about 5 years ago.

In Michigan, the promise of two-day delivery was more wishful thinking, at least where I lived.

I was like, okay, sometimes it happened, most times it didn't.

But I was amazed when I moved to Columbia, Maryland, And suddenly the speed of my Amazon packages was extremely fast.

I couldn't believe the first time I received a package overnight, or even same-day delivery, ordering at 11am and it's there at 3pm.

I guess because of the Amazon warehouse nearby, something like that.

But maybe Amazon is trying to impress all these politicians that live around there.

I don't know what it is, but it's amazing.

And I've heard that Amazon even tries to do, once they even go beyond, they want to go to like 15 minute delivery with drones and all kinds of stuff.

There may be some of you who are surprised at Paul's words here When He says, we have a great High Priest, present tense.

It doesn't say, you may have, or you will have, or if you behave, He will be your High Priest.

No, He already is your Great High priest.

Jesus has dedicated and committed himself to you long before you even knew him.

He has been anointed, set apart for this purpose.

No conditions have to be met before he's willing to step into this role.

You don't have to convince him to be your high priest.

If you tell somebody today on the street that you have a high priest, they might think you're a little crazy.

They may have all kinds of weird associations that they got from Hollywood about a priest or high priest.

When I learned about this year's Maryland Men of Faith theme and my task to preach on it in just 2 sermons, I felt a little overwhelmed since there's so much to unpack.

But I am assuming that Some or all of you have some or extensive knowledge of the Old Testament sanctuary.

Those of you who were in some of the seminars this morning, you may have already caught some glimpses of the sanctuary topic here and there.

But just for the sake of getting our minds into the right frame, let me do a brief crash course on the topic.

After God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, he said to Moses in Exodus 25 verse 8, And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them according to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings.

Just so you shall make it." Alright, so here God instructed Moses to build this sanctuary and to make a sanctuary here on earth modeled after God tells Moses to build a sanctuary, a special tent structure that was mobile they could take with them as they were wandering through the wilderness and this was later on turned into what we call the temple which was destroyed and then rebuilt and destroyed again and he told them to build it according to a pattern this means that God showed Moses a sanctuary in heaven a heavenly blueprint a pattern after which the earthly sanctuary was modeled.

So he built it according to what God showed him.

When you continue reading the books of Exodus and Leviticus, you will get detailed instructions on how to, I mean, every little thing, God told him exactly how to build it, and then all the rituals and the services that go with it, it was always all laid out there.

And you may think, oh, it's so boring to read, but hey, there's so much wonderful details that teaches about Jesus in those chapters.

So I highly recommend you take your time and read Leviticus and Exodus about the sanctuary.

Now, if we look at the sanctuary real quick, this is a quick overview.

This is somebody built a model of the sanctuary.

Maybe some of you have been to Messiah's Mansion.

I think not too long ago they were in this area.

And you can see kind of what it looked like.

There's the altar of burnt offering and the laver to wash yourself.

We have 2 compartments, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.

The altar, this is where all the sacrifices took place.

They even made a little blood or red there to show it would apply to blood on the horns of the altar.

But the blood would also be carried into the sanctuary, sprinkled on the veil, on the Day of Atonement even sprinkled on the mercy seat.

And so, which of course all pointed to what Jesus did.

Final Charge

Thank you for the opportunity we've had to study the Bible, to grow as men, individually, but also collectively, Lord.

We pray now that your Spirit will be with us, and give us 1 more moment of clarity into the spiritual world.

Help us to understand what you're trying to teach us, what it means that you are our High Priest Jesus, and how it all affects our lives, how we can come to your throne of grace.

And so, Lord, we just pray that you bless us now in this time.

This morning we spent a good amount of time looking at our great High Priest Jesus, his role, his commitments to us as our High Priest in the Heavenly Sanctuary.

And we recognized that there exists no reason not to hold on to Him, to hold on to our faith and our conviction and our confession in Him.

He is our advocate, our intercessor, our mediator.

And putting our faith in Jesus, our great High Priest, allows him to bring his greatness into our smallness.

As we wrap up our Sabbath together, let's turn again in our Bibles to our theme verse, Hebrews chapter 4, and we're going to take a look 1 more time at our theme scripture, Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14 through 16.

The Bible says, Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

After Paul introduced to us the great High Priest Jesus, he contrasts him with who he is not.

He says in verse 15, For we do not have a high priest who cannot what?

Sympathize with our weaknesses Paul established in verse 14 that Jesus is God But also our mediator our connection point and by becoming the son of God he stepped into our reality so we can 1 day live in his.

Paul goes now into more depth to bring out the heart of God and what it means for us.

Jesus as our divine great high priest is not just seeing our pain, he's not just acknowledging our suffering, our infirmities, our weaknesses, he's not just aware of them.

The Greek term here literally means to experience together with.

1 of my favorite things in life is to give people experiences that I have had, to replicate an experience I have had that I enjoyed very much, with other people or for other people.

For example, taking them on a trip to some pristine mountain lake and just being surrounded by God's beautiful nature is something that deeply touched me and just seeing it happening to them.

Just like seeing the wonder in people's eyes when they experience something for the first time maybe that's really beautiful that has touched me personally.

And it's just in general now that I have little children seeing the world anew through their eyes, it's a special experience to be there with them and to do it with them.

And just in general, doing wonderful things, having experiences, it's always better to do it with friends, with family, with people around us.

This is why when we go on a trip or have some kind of awesome experience and then we tell others who were not there about it, it's hard to give them that same feeling that you've had.

It's impossible to give them that feeling by just showing them pictures or even if you try to tell them really well what happened.

And you usually end up saying, you had to be there.

Now on the negative side, when we're going through a difficult experience in life, for example a tragedy or a sickness, human nature, we crave sympathy, empathy, and simply someone who sees our pain, acknowledges it, supports us through it all.

When my daughters are sick or hurt, they immediately call for my attention.

They want Papa to be there and hold them and just know that Papa is going to physically and emotionally support them through the situation.

Humans need somebody who is there with them in these moments.

Sometimes as men we have a hard time acknowledging that that is the case, because we are hard and we have to do this, but it is true for men too.

As a dad, when a moment like that arises with my little girls, and they maybe hurt themselves or they're sick, all I want to do is hold them and just, you know, I wish I could just carry the burden for them.

I wish I could just take that disease or the sickness and take it upon myself, especially since they're so young, they don't even understand why is there sickness, why are these things happening.

They don't understand all the implications of this world yet.

But I believe this is exactly what Jesus wants to do for us, just deeper.

Jesus is God and through the Spirit, He's supernaturally connected to our inner life.

He can understand our innermost thoughts and feelings.

But not only that, he also took on human flesh and he knows what it's like down here.

He's able to sympathize, to empathize and experience together with you and me whatever we may be going through.

He has been in the trenches even when the hard times happen.

As the psalmist says, Yea, though I walk through the shadow of death, of the valley of death, I will not fear.

You may be going through a hard time right now in whatever level, spiritually, physically, financially, whatever it is, Jesus promises to be there with us, to walk with us.

Jesus spent over 3 decades on earth and was exposed to the full bandwidth of the human experience.

He felt joy, happiness, celebrations, but he also had to learn and grow, deal with family problems, go through hardships, exhaustion, loneliness, pain, temptation, suffering, loss, grief, crimes, torture, murder, and even the pain of carrying the punishment for sin.

Something I hope none of us will ever have to feel.

But isn't this incredibly encouraging to know?

That our great High Priest is not just a distant God who lets us just exist on this miserable planet.

His desire is not just to dwell with us, it extends to more than just geographical location.

It is a desire and promise to dwell with us, to be there with us, to walk with us, to feel with us, and to help us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.

Now probably It's safe to assume that most of us have no problem calling on God in difficult situations, may it be a dangerous situation or some sickness.

But I believe the text addresses 1 specific and dare I say the most important issue regarding redemption in which we and I believe men specifically may struggle at times to come to Christ.

It says, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points what?

As a young father of 2 under 2 and a third 1 coming soon, it's interesting, praise God and mercy, It's interesting to talk to other fathers who are either in the trenches right now, or have in recent years gone through that experience, and the various stages of early childhood development, and the challenges that come with it.

And when I share some of the struggles, such as sleep problems of the babies, and then because of that my own sleep problems or other issues and behavioral issues with the kids, it's not unusual to hear, yeah, been there, done that.

That phrase can be both comforting, but it can also be annoying, specifically if you're looking for some comfort and guidance.

But it does help to hear that you're not alone, the only 1 who's going through whatever you're going through.

And obviously this goes for many other situations that are shared in the human experience.

When it comes to situations of pain and suffering or failures, those words can be very comforting.

To hear that another person has been where I have been.

Another person has experienced my problems.

To hear the acknowledgement that this is something that I'm going through and I'm not alone.

Which is why organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous exist and are very successful.

Being able to connect with people who can relate to your situation, your problem or your addiction is helpful, is a helpful first step in the process of overcoming.

What Paul is telling us here though, is that Jesus gets us.

He's experienced the struggles of the flesh, the temptations of this world, the constant bombardment of sinful distractions.

Satan did not hold back when he attacked Jesus.

He threw the strongest temptations at the Son of God, who had to remain faithful in order to serve as the sacrifice needed for our salvation.

Ellen White says, it was in a time of greatest weakness that Christ was assailed by the fiercest temptations.

Thus Satan thought to prevail, by this policy, he had gained the victory over men.

When strength failed and the willpower weakened and faith ceased to repose in God, then those who had stood long and valiantly for the right were overcome.

Satan was trying to attack Jesus like he attacks us, but he turned up the volume.

Series

Plenary

Final Charge

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

What is Righteousness by Faith?

The Answer to Our Deficiencies

57m

The Sanctuary

8. The Books Don’t Lie

48m

Jesus On Prophecy

The Cornerstone of Bible Prophecy

52m

ASI Southern Union 2013 Plenary Sessions

When Men Have Labor Pains

44m

War of Thrones

The Map to the Throne Room

1h 7m

Back to the Mission

The Battle Cry of the Remnant

1h 1m

Don’t Lose Heart

50m

A Beginning With No End

Come On In

50m

Plenary

Kia Kaha

59m

An Undivided Throne

1h

Living by Faith

1h 7m

Dwayne Lemon Revival

The Wake Up Call

1h 19m

Sound Doctrine